Gravy and Groping: This Thanksgiving, You Get Both!

My family
celebrated Thanksgiving early this year. If your family is anything like mine,
you can expect to have at least one dinnertime conversation about the new
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport rules regarding pat-downs
and scanners, both of which are far more physically invasive than they have
been in the past—meaning, TSA officials get to either see you naked or grope
your genitals.

I moved back
to the Midwest from Boston
several years ago, in part because flying home for family get-togethers had
become increasingly unpleasant since 9/11. I am grateful that holiday
gatherings and vacations are all within driving distance. However, many people
don't live close to their families, so it's likely that there will be at least
one relative (maybe you) who was forced to endure a TSA screening to be with
their families. Others may have had to travel for work; I have a business trip
coming up in January, and I'm not looking forward to flying.

Many people
are outraged by the new screening procedures. Others view them as necessary to
ensure our safety. There's been a lot of publicity around white male outrage
about the procedures; in fact, "don't touch my junk" has become a
rallying cry after a young white man in California
uttered the phrase while objecting to a full-body pat-down. As usual, though,
people who have already been wounded by our culture's rigid views on sexuality
and gender have the most to lose.

Sexual assault
survivors have spoken out about how the experience of being photographed or
touched by a stranger can trigger traumatic memories for them. Some have stated
that the screenings themselves are a form of assault, which opens up an
interesting dialogue about what "consent" means: If you must fly in
order to see your loved ones or keep a job, can you truly consent to a
mandatory screening that violates your personal boundaries? Yes, you may be
aware of the screening before you get to the airport, so it can be argued that
you have made a choice to allow it. But the TSA is dangling your right to
travel freely just beyond those full-body scanners, saying that you must submit
to them in order to get what you need. Sounds like coercion to me, and consent
cannot be coerced.

The new
screenings can also be a nightmare for transgender people. What happens if a
scan or pat-down reveals that a person's "junk" does not conform to
what the TSA screener expects? Some transgender women wear breast forms or have
a penis, and transgender men may choose to wear a packer (a flaccid penis &
testicles used to create a male-appearing crotch, similar to how breast forms
are used to create a female-appearing chest) or a binder (which constricts the
breasts to create a male-appearing chest). Because of this, transgender people
can expect even more invasive searches, questioning and humiliation. This is a
terrible scenario for someone who, like everyone else, just wishes to be
accepted as the gender with which they identify and who, like everyone else,
just wants to get on the airplane and fly. When was the last time you had your
gender questioned in public by total strangers in order to get somewhere that
you wanted to go?

Our bodies
and sexual selves have always been battlegrounds. The right to control our
fertility, the right to have sex with whom and how we please, the right to be
free of sexual assault and harassment, the right to express our gender and
sexuality in ways that feel right to us—all these have been hard-won fights that
still continue today. Is giving up individual control of our bodies for the
ostensible reason of increasing public safety worth it in the case of the TSA
screening procedures?

Want
Laura to answer your questions in SEXpress? Send them to laura@shepex.com. Not all questions received will be
answered in the column, and Laura cannot provide personal answers to questions
that do not appear here. Questions sent to this address may be reproduced in
this column, both in print and online, and may be edited for clarity and
content.

Laura
Anne Stuart has a master’s degree in public health and has worked as a
sexuality educator for more than a decade. She owns the Tool Shed, an erotic boutique on Milwaukee’s East Side.